1. Field of the Invention
This application relates to a turbine in fluid, particularly to a turbine with the axis of rotation lying in a plane transverse to the direction of flow of the fluid, with controllable display components on the blades of the turbine.
2. Description of Related Art
Information and advertisements are now an integral part of modern living. Conventional signs and billboards typically have the information prominently displayed on a flat surface. To capture additional attention to the signs and billboards at night time or low light intensity environments, the signs and billboards may be illuminated by external light coming from an artificial light source or by light emitting elements incorporated into the billboards.
Recent advancements in light emitting diodes (or “LEDs”) or minute light sources have created many new types of self illuminated advertising—from simple static signage to complex screens where messages or advertising contents can be displayed and controlled.
The effects of advertising are more attractive when the displayed objects are moving. The barber's pole is an example of such advertising.
However, to light up the advertisement and signage, energy is required to produce the light. Furthermore, energy is required to control the display and to set the sign in motion. In existing systems, the energy is typically provided by electric power obtained from the power grid. With current production of electricity relying heavily on fossil fuel, the use of these colorful and eye capturing signage is contributing to the use of non renewable resources. This means that illuminated and moving signs are introducing more carbon and pollution emissions to the atmosphere indirectly and are thus harmful to our environment.
Wind power is regarded as the cleanest source of energy. A wind turbine produces the least amount of carbon and pollution emissions during its entire service life cycle. From the perspective of advertising, it would be ideal if wind turbines can be used to capture non polluting energy and their structural components, such as the blades, can be used to carry illuminated advertising billboards.
The blades of existing longitudinal axis wind turbines typically rotate on a horizontal axis and the shape of the blades is aerodynamically designed to be slender. Although longitudinal axis wind turbines can provide non polluting energy to supply power to signage and display, their form and dimensions make it difficult to incorporate display and signage into the turbine system.
UK Patent Application No. 2466243 has attempted to provide a solution for such a turbine with longitudinal axis with three arrays of LEDs incorporated along the length of one or more blades. However, to provide or reproduce a stable still or moving image using such a system, the LED control becomes very complex, and is not suited for a turbine with a transverse axis.
Furthermore, a transverse axis wind turbine with specially designed oblong and plate-shape blades can suitably be adopted to achieve the purpose of displaying still or moving image as it provides much wider area.
The turbine and the associated system described in the following patent application provide an improved or alternative solution to facilitate environmentally friendly advertisement and signage.